Helen Bond

in the civil wars.

And so the Jewish religion is sort of allowed, or at least Jewish peculiarities are allowed.

So it takes quite a while before Christianity is a thing.

Certainly the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, people start to think who's a Jew, who's not a Jew.

And it's really by sort of the second century.

By that time, you've got so many non-Jews coming into the movement

that it's clear that it's something different to the Jewish faith.

And then I think it starts to become problematic as people are moving from paganism into Christianity.

Then the powers that be start to take more notice.

Yeah, and followers can often be accused of atheism because their allegiance to Christ

The God of Jesus, the Jewish God, I suppose, essentially, means that they're not taking part in the civic cults.

And, you know, this is one thing for Jews, because they never did anyway.

But once you're starting to get a lot of Gentiles, pagans into the movement, then...

This is stopping people worshipping the gods of the city.

And this is dangerous because the gods of the city need to be given their dues.

And if there's a lot of people who aren't doing that, that then starts to become problematic.

But you get isolated bits of persecution in sort of various parts of, you know, for various reasons in the first and second century.

It's sort of once you're getting into the late second, third century that, you know, Christianity is distinct enough and big enough for it to start being a threat.

He was a Jewish fella.

Exactly.